The Hunt for Healthy Snack Bars – LUNA

I’m always waiting and watching for a deal, and today, I had coupons for 3 different brands of bars: LUNA, Larabar, or Kashi. Not too long ago, we bought a bunch of different types of Larabars, and CJ liked most of them. I thought they were okay and were good in a pinch, so I figured we would try something different and go for LUNA. Since the whole family was with me, I couldn’t really do a thorough analysis of the nutritional information, so time to write a post so that I’m prepared for next time (if they pass the test!).

As a reminder, my three rules are that

they should contain whole grains, nuts, and seeds,

they should be low in saturated fat (preferably less than 3g), and

added sugars should not be listed in the top 3 ingredients.

LUNA

Chocolate Peppermint Stick

Yep. I’m a sucker for mint and chocolate, so I went for this flavor. An added bonus is that my husband is not crazy about mint and chocolate, so I didn’t think I would have to worry about them all disappearing during the week while I was at work. He tried one, though, and actually enjoyed it. I absolutely loved it. Could’ve eaten a couple. Again, I believe that’s always a good clue that it’s probably got a little too much sugar in it, but let’s see.

Saturated fat is decent, but as suspected, the sugar is a little high. Looking at the ingredients, technically, the second and third ingredients after the protein grain blend are sweeteners. There is also no mention of whole grains, nuts, or seeds, so in the end, this is 1 for 3.

Other flavors are similar.

Nutz Over Chocolate

A little less sugar. Same saturated fat. Some actual peanuts. More protein, too. A slightly better choice.

LUNA Protein

Chocolate Peanut Butter

I picked one of these up, but put it down because the saturated fat was 3.5g.

Ouch. The sugars, too. Yes, there’s more protein, but all of the bars in the protein line are right around 13g of sugar.

Moving on.

LUNA 5G Sugar

Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk

So since sugar is an issue with their other lines, I thought this looked promising.

The ingredients start like most of the others–with that protein grain blend. The second ingredient is a sweetener, so strike one. Fat is good, and there are some peanuts. However, the majority of the ingredients are not whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Turns out, though, that for LUNA bars, this line appears to be the best. So, in the future, if I need to choose a LUNA bar it will be the LUNA 5G Sugar Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk bar. Wow. That’s a mouth full.

Sadly, though, it appears LUNA bars will mostly need to be avoided (unless I need a quick mint chocolate fix, of course ;).

Missed my other healthy snack bar posts? Check out Nature Valley and KIND bars, and keep watching for when I examine other snack bars like Larabar and Kashi.